


Dennis Traps A Mouse

by Anonymous



Category: It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia
Genre: Alternate Universe - Animals, Angst, Blood and Gore, Crack Treated Seriously, Dark Comedy, Dennis Reynolds is a Bastard Man, Dubious Consent, Friendship, M/M, Slow Burn, The Author Regrets Everything, The Author Regrets Nothing, Vore, all the sex is consensual but. see other tags, but like for real here folks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-02 00:55:53
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 17,960
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23506471
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: Summary: Dennis and Dee are foxes, part of the ruling predator class. Mac and Charlie are a mouse and a goose, low-life prey animals, and yet the four have been friends for years. Dee and Dennis are just starting to think that’s kind of weird, actually…Warning: this story contains hard vore and nastiness, viewer discretion advised
Relationships: Charlie Kelly/Dee Reynolds, Mac McDonald/Dennis Reynolds
Comments: 3
Kudos: 13
Collections: Anonymous





	Dennis Traps A Mouse

**Author's Note:**

> this story is mostly crack but as you can see it is far too long to just be a joke. i know it says theyre animals but for everyone's sanity including my own please try and picture them as humanoid as you can.

“The dumb bird actually thought I wanted to _bang_ him,” Dee said, laughing. Dennis laughed with her, before wrinkling his nose.

“Oh, wait, that’s disgusting. The guy was homeless, had like fifty STDs, and you actually… Not that I’d put it past you to stoop that low, I mean –”

“Of _course_ not,” Dee snapped. “It was free dinner. I was craving duck, and it’s not like anyone was going to miss him.”

Mac heard Charlie sigh next to him and felt a pang of sympathy. He said nothing, but gave him a half-hearted pat on the shoulder. The foxes hadn’t noticed them, Dee still gleefully recounting last night’s dinner experience, and Dennis raising a beer bottle as a mocking toast. “To Cricket. May his memory live on.”

“In many ways, he’s still here with us.” She patted her abdomen, eliciting another snort of disgust/amusement from her twin.

“I mean, it’s sad that you felt you had to go for such low-grade meat,” he said. “Whether you banged him or not. He was probably _covered_ in germs, filling you up with gross toxins.”

“Yeah, Dee,” Mac piped up. “Pretty gross, really.”

Dee rolled her eyes. “Like _you'd_ know, bottom-feeder.”

“Can we, uh, please change this topic? Now?” Charlie said, unable to keep quiet anymore. The gang turned to look at him. He averted their gaze, obviously uncomfortable. It was hard to tell with Charlie, what was going to set him off. It seemed arbitrary, really, when a detailed description of butchery and consumption of prey animals wouldn’t make him bat an eye, but offhand references to his avian nature could get your head bitten off. It was understandable that he would be feeling uncomfortable during this conversation, though. He and Mac had tentatively been requesting that the twins tone down their hunting stories over the years of their friendship. Or at least, make them a little less sadistic in their retelling.

Certainly, when Dee did it, it was super grating, since Dee was a nasty vixen with a narrow face and mean crooked fangs. Hearing her reminisce about some poor dumb rabbit or whoever’d had bad luck one day, that was sure to rub anyone up the wrong way. And Dennis was even worse, objectively. The things he did – proudly – to prey women were enough to turn a sane person’s stomach. Anyone who met the fox twins would be under no illusions that these were predators who were comfortable in their own skin, and who only saw one thing worth getting out of 60% of the world’s population, which was a good meal.

And yet. There they were, hanging out with a mouse and a goose, including Mac and Charlie in their gang like there was no difference between them. And that alone was enough to let Mac forgive them their insensitive ways, especially Dennis. Because they made it clear with everything they did that Mac and Charlie were excluded from the true bottom-feeder category, that they were worthy of being their friends and bar co-owners. Well, janitor in Charlie’s case. And Dee still had nothing nice to say to Mac after twenty years of knowing each other, which was fine because Mac had nothing nice to say to her either, and okay, really it was just that Dennis liked Mac. And Mac loved Dennis.

Now Dennis was eyeing Charlie with one of his unreadable expressions. His eyes flashed flint-like in the dim bar lighting. “Sorry, bud,” he said. “Was he like, a relative or something?” The _are you all related_ was implied, and Mac shot him an exasperated glare. Trust Dennis not to even know the difference between a duck and a goose.

“No,” Charlie said, dejected. “Just getting tired of all these stories, you know? Like, how can Mac and I ever relate to this shit?”

“We have to hear all about your dumb little adventures,” Dee argued. “Like we give a crap about you making friends with a cockroach –”

“At least our stories don’t involve murdering innocent people!” Charlie’s voice was reaching that high-pitched squawk he got when his feathers were really ruffled, and Mac didn’t like the way Dennis was shaking his head in disdain, so he thumped Charlie on the shoulder again.

“Dude, come on,” he said, keeping his voice light. “You know that’s not how they see it.”

“Are you – are you serious right now?”

Mac shrugged, gesturing between themselves and the twins. “We got our lifestyle, they got theirs. It’s ancient history.”

“It’s not _murder_ ,” Dee said. “It’s, literally the circle of life.”

“Right on!” Mac said, though he wasn’t clear on how there was anything circular about the way of things.

But Dennis looked thoughtful. “Doesn’t it ever weird _you_ out, Mac?”

“Well, I mean,” Mac said. “Obviously if one of your kind tried something with _me_ I’d kick their asses to the ground, and that’d show them which side of the food chain they were messing with. Like, sucks to be the guys that get jumped, but that’s kinda their problem, isn’t it? And, uh, Charlie’s obviously safe too, since he’s with me.”

“Oh, great,” Charlie said under his breath.

“But more importantly,” Mac raised his voice, “We’re the gang, right? Like, those labels, predator, prey, this side versus that side, they don’t count between _us_. We’re all just cool with each other. Tolerance and shit.”

There was a brief silence round the bar. Charlie shook his head at Mac in bewilderment. Dennis’ eyebrows were raised, as if he hadn’t considered all this before, and now that they thought about it, it wasn’t something anyone had ever really said out loud before. “Yeah,” Dennis said finally. “Damn. That’s a pretty good way of looking at it, can’t deny.”

“For once, I agree,” Dee said.

“And you’re right of course. We’d never see you two in that way, cause you’re –” Dennis gestured to Mac, a little awkward, “Well, you’re helping me pay rent, for one thing.”

“He’s right,” Dee said, leaning round Dennis to address Charlie. “You don’t have anything to fear from us, you know that.”

There. That was perfect. Mac glowed with pride at his social navigation skills, swivelled on the stool to face Charlie and wait for him to concede. But Charlie was still glowering at Dee, said “Guess that’s what Cricket thought too, huh?” He let the comment sit uncomfortably in the air for a moment, before hopping down with a curse and heading to the backroom.

Mac spared the twins an apologetic glance before dashing after his friend. “Charlie, wait!”

“ _What_?” Charlie was already hunting through the room for one of his spray paints. “Can a bird not get high without you nagging me the whole time?” Having found what he was looking for, he took one preparatory huff, smiled, and, despite being pissed at Mac, he offered the can to him, too.

Mac hesitated. “Come on, dude, now’s not the time. There’s shit to do out there, and Dennis –”

“Fine. Stay out there with them, whatever.” And already he was opening the vent, disappearing inside with remarkable swiftness.

Mac shook his head and turned around, about to head into the bar again, before something caught his eye. Today’s newspaper, open to a page with a disturbing headline: _Kelly Farm triumphs in ‘inhumane treatment’ trial._ “Shit.” There was no way Charlie could have read that, but if he’d heard something on the news this morning, that would explain his foul mood perfectly. And if it was about Kelly Farm, Mac couldn’t just let him be on his own right now. Cursing again, he hoisted himself into the open vent from the desk, hoping he remembered the route, and set off after his friend. Dennis and Dee could wait.

He took a while to wriggle his way through the vents in the right direction to Charlie’s bad room. The clanging and swearing was definitely loud enough for Charlie to hear him, so when he found him still sitting there with his paint and a mess of broken bottles around his feet, he took it as a good sign that he had stayed put. Mac pulled himself up to kneel and stretch his back, catching his breath for a moment. “What gives, man,” Charlie said, though there was no fight in his voice. “You know I don’t come here to be, like, followed.”

“Yeah, I followed you anyway,” Mac said. “You, uh… Don’t have to talk about it if you don’t wanna, but is this about Uncle Jack’s farm?”

Charlie grimaced and let out a honk of rage in response. Mac winced and pulled himself over to sit by his avian friend. He made to put his arm round his shoulder, but stopped himself just in time. Charlie still flinched away from him with a glare. “Okay, no touching. And, uh, you huff however much of that stuff as you need, bro.”

“Wasn’t gonna wait for your permission, but whatever.”

“Cool.” They sat in silence for a few moments, filled only with Charlie’s erratic breathing and the scuttle of cockroaches.

“I just wish they’d put him away so I don’t have to think about him looking for me anymore,” Charlie said eventually.

“I hear you, bud,” Mac said. He’d only gotten a couple of glimpses inside the Kelly farm when he and Charlie were very young, but it had been enough to terrify the living shit out of him. The geese were all fucked up in their heads and their bodies, going around with these glassy eyes and living in tiny rooms. That freaked him out, and so did the weirdness that it was Uncle Jack, a goose himself, running the operation. But that wasn’t why Charlie was hiding up here. Mac knew that Uncle Jack’s creepiness went far beyond his messed up farm, and that he was probably a good chunk of the reason why Charlie had a bad room in the first place.

“And then with Dee and Dennis telling their hunting stories again, it’s like, that’s too much when I’m already up to here,” Charlie exclaimed, holding a hand by his temple for emphasis. “I dunno man, sometimes I wonder why we even hang out with them.”

“Cause they’re our friends,” Mac said, confused.

“Maybe we should hang out with some other friends. People a little more like us.”

“Last I checked, you don’t _have_ any prey friends,” Mac said. “Working at a goose farm will do that to you.” He cringed, that was a low blow.

“There’s the Waitress,” Charlie said, ignoring it. Mac rolled his eyes.

“Okay, first of all, the Waitress is not your friend just because you stalk her. Secondly, she’s not even prey.”

“She’s _half_ prey, man! Otters are like, in the middle. And what the hell are you talking about? We’re like this close to tying the knot.”

“If that’s the only person you can think of, you’re shit out of luck,” Mac said. “They might be dicks like half the time, but honestly, we’re not gonna do much better for friends than those two. Not to mention we wouldn’t find better jobs than owning the bar.”

Charlie looked at him funny for a moment, before sighing and shaking his head. “Sure. Whatever you say. You wanna head back to them now?”

Mac stretched out his legs, pushing shards of glass to the corners. “I can chill here a little while.”

* * *

Dennis closed the backroom door behind him, heading behind the bar again. “Yep, they went in the vents. Charlie must be in a real sulk about this.”

“I don’t know about you, but I’m really starting to get tired of that guy,” Dee was saying. “He’s over there judging us, like he has anyone better to hang out with…”

“He’s just highly strung.” Dennis cleaned out glasses, just to have something to do with his hands. “He has that whole tragic backstory thing with the battery farm, too, you know. It’s best just to let him cool off and move on.”

“Probably. But, you’d think he’d have gotten used to this stuff by now.” Dee picked at her teeth, where bits of Cricket were still a little stuck. “Old Cricket didn’t put up much of a fight in the end. He knew this was where things were gonna end up.”

“I dunno. That might have more to do with him being homeless and sick and probably ready for death by the time you got to him.” Dennis had more fine dining experiences under his belt than Dee, and his experience, the girls always put up at least some kind of fight. It was a strange thing almost every prey had in common, he found – or at least, the ones he went to bed with. They all really seemed to think that they were the exception, that this sort of thing just wouldn’t happen to them. “Maybe some of them are used to it, have accepted their fates or whatever. I think most of them just get by not thinking about it too much, or assuming they’ll be safe.”

“Certainly seems to be Mac’s point of view.”

“Yeah. Well, we all know that guy likes a double-d cup.” Dennis mimed groping exaggeratedly large breasts. “Denial and delusion.”

“It’s sort of sad,” Dee mused. “But his words kind of got me thinking, you know.”

“Yeah, thinking he’s in for one hell of a shock when he finally does get jumped.”

“Why _didn’t_ we eat them?”

Dennis did a double take. “Uh.”

Dee’s ears flattened; the thought seemed to shock her too. “I mean, I know we haven’t talked about it for years maybe, if at all, but we only made friends with them so we could take them by surprise and eat them, right? And then, we just… Didn’t do that.”

Dennis opened his mouth to respond, but found himself utterly blindsided. Because, yeah, that definitely had been his intention at first. He’d been going through an experimentation phase in high school, and had toyed with the idea of hunting Mac by getting close to him first – in some ways, a precursor to the “Dinner date” system he’d perfected in his adult life. But the opportunity never really came up, and they started hanging out with each other in all their free time, and it was all good fun. Mac laughed at all his jokes, complimented his appearance, and looked at him with such fierce affection that Dennis’ self-esteem was sitting pretty right up until college, when they had to say goodbye. Those four years at Penn were some of Dennis’ most miserable. Mac coming back into his life had brightened it up, and eating him no longer felt like an imperative. “I guess we became actual friends, instead.”

“Well, duh,” Dee said, rolling her eyes. “But don’t you think that’s just a little… Weird?”

“I don’t quite get what you mean.”

“Come on. Us two, hanging out with _them?_ I mean, especially Charlie. Guy doesn’t have any basic life skills, he’s essentially bred for slaughter.”

“Oh, don’t say that,” Dennis said mildly.

“Don’t tell me you haven’t thought about it,” she retorted. “About Mac.”

Dennis looked at her, incredulous, before finally giving in with a low chuckle. “Yeah. ‘Course I have. I mean, have you seen the guy?” He had, of course, seen far more of Mac than Dee could ever hope to, mostly due to Mac’s utter lack of boundaries in their apartment. “He’s no beefcake, but he’s one hell of a snack.”

Dee laughed shrilly. “Good one.” She shrugged. “Yeah, just thought it was kinda weird that we’ve been friends with ready meals for twenty years and never really acknowledged it. Pass me a beer?”

But now Dee had got Dennis on this train of thought, he couldn’t get off. He thought about how Mac never missed an opportunity to touch him, all the times he’d stopped just short of kissing him. How he only ever seemed interested in fucking women Dennis had already been with, how he failed to hide his ogling when Dennis came out of the shower, and how his entire face lit up whenever Dennis offered a single morsel of praise to him. “Why Cricket?” he asked. “Why eat such a repulsive salmonella-ridden piece of fowl?”

“Quit judging me. He was easy pickings and I was hungry.”

“And _why_ was he easy, compared to, say, a stranger you cornered in an alleyway?”

Dee threw up her hands in exasperation. “Cause he thought we were gonna bang. Which, I remind you, we _didn’t._ ”

“Exactly. Way easier to get the clothes off and start the process when they’re already in bed, right? And also,” Dennis smiled. “Heck of a lot more fun.”

Dee recoiled. “Whoa, there. Just cause it was easy for me to bag Cricket, doesn’t mean I think it’s _fun_ to mindfuck my prey like that. I’m not a sicko like you, making sex tapes of my meals.”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Sweet Dee. You would if you could only get some, but we both know you haven’t gotten laid in months. You’re too insecure to put yourself out there, and when you do you get turned down. Sad to see, really.”

“I don’t have to take this kind of abuse from a man who can’t leave the house without completing his ten-step fur routine.”

“You’re derailing me, this isn’t about you,” Dennis said, ears prickling with excitement. “Mac’s crazy about me, right? I wouldn’t even have to try.”

Realisation dawned in her eyes as she leaned forward over the bar. “Oh, you twisted motherfucker.”

“Oh, come on. You just said we should have been eating them instead of hanging out with them.”

“I didn’t think you were actually formulating a plan!” Her elbows on the bar, she rested her head in both hands, a sinister childlike smile on her face. “So, you’re thinking of getting him into bed, having your way with him, then tucking in? Pass me a beer, I said.”

“Something like that,” Dennis said, reaching below bar for a bottle.

“That is dark. And yet, I kind of love it?” Dee stood up, now excited herself. “Oh! And I can do the same thing to Charlie, might as well put him out of his misery too, right?”

“Okay,” Dennis said, choking on a laugh. “I’m glad you’re no longer pretending to be above this behaviour, but really Dee, set your sights lower. Even if you were a reasonably attractive and desirable vixen, Charlie would never sleep with you and you know it. He’s only got eyes for one woman.” He passed Dee her beer, before stooping again to grab one for himself.

“I’m sure something can be done about that,” Dee said. “And fuck off Dennis, I may not be a slut like you, but I can _totally_ seduce anyone I want. Including Charlie.”

“And why would you want to, exactly? You have some kind of poultry fixation?”

“Between you and me,” Dee said, ignoring him, “I think Charlie secretly does have a thing for me.” Sitting back down, she chugged half the bottle, exhaling long and loudly afterwards.

“You’re insane,” Dennis said simply.

“Oh, you want me to prove it? Give me a week, I’ll get him into bed.”

“No, you will not. Right now Charlie thinks you’re the devil, and I don’t want you jeopardizing things by being too obvious and over-eager. I’ll give you a month.”

Dee looked pained. “What? That’s ages. Our schemes usually last like, three days tops.”

“Trust me, the long game is best for this one,” Dennis said. “These are our best friends we’re talking about.” He clicked his tongue thoughtfully. “Thing is, I can already bang basically any chick I want, and most dudes, without them needing to be in love with me first. If you give me a month to work with Mac, I could make something a little more special out of this.”

“Well, of course,” Dee said sincerely. “Since he’s so important to you.”

“So we’re on? A month from now, we’ll see if you can get Charlie into bed, by which time I’ll probably have Mac offering himself up willingly, and then we can –” He mimed the appropriate action with invisible knife and fork. Dee cackled in that unattractive screech of hers.

“You sociopath!”

“Hm, we’ve had _sicko, twisted motherfucker_ and _sociopath_ in the past five minutes – all from someone preparing to take part in the exact same activities as me. Hypocrisy is a beautiful thing.”

“Nuh-uh,” Dee said. “Not the same for me, ‘cause I’m a female, I’m one of the oppressed.”

“Sure.” They both glanced silently at the bar for a moment, drinking their beers.

After a while, Dee said, “It’ll be real quiet without them around.”

“Yeah,” Dennis said. Oddly, he hadn’t dedicated a lot of thought yet to what it would be like _after,_ with Mac and Charlie gone from their lives. He supposed they’d find some new friends, but it was true that things would never really be the same, and something tightened in his chest, not quite an emotion but reminiscent of one. “It’ll be worth it, though. It’s the circle of life, like you said. And besides,” he added, “If somebody’s gonna eat those two morons, it ought to be us.”

* * *

Dennis was nothing if not a careful planner. He already had a note perfect system for gaining the eternal adoration of animals of the opposite sex, which would require a number of modifications for the specifics of his and Mac’s relationship. He’d already demonstrated his value in spades over the years of their friendship. The next step would be engaging physically, which Dennis saw culminating in coitus after three to four days of careful grooming. Mac may desire him, but there was still a fifteen-tonne anvil of Catholic guilt that Dennis would need to shift off, if he was to have any hope of getting Mac to admit his feelings. After the first bang, it would be a matter of gauging Mac’s reaction and opposing it. It was all a system of pushing and pulling at the right moments, keeping his target in a state of constant uncertainty. The game was to see how long he could strike that delicate balance of testing Mac’s limits and devotion, until he would draw him in at the last possible moment, and fully gain his trust.

It was a gamble, no question of it. He could misjudge things only slightly and risk losing Mac’s trust irreversibly. But the challenge would be half the fun, and if he played it right, Mac would be putty in his hands right until the final moment.

He began by mirroring Mac’s own standard of flirtation – conspicuously checking him out, leaning into him more when they were next to each other, and frequently ‘accidentally’ brushing his hand against his arms, legs and ass. It was a good start, but Mac and Dennis’ lack of personal space was already great enough in their daily life that he feared these actions would not be strong enough as signals.

So he upped the ante a little. He snaked an arm round Mac’s waist and snuggled next to him on movie night, and found more intimate ways to touch him throughout the day – a hand at the small of his back, massaging the back of his neck, and occasionally talking lowly into one of his cute round ears. As for looking, he added to his increased staring with quick, easy-to-miss compliments which Mac, of course, never missed. It was an undeniable joy to watch Mac’s reactions to Dennis’ behaviour, reeling between shivering under his touch and violently pulling away as he flushed.

Adding to this new form of interaction with his roommate was the dual motive Dennis now had for letting his eyes wander over him. Mac-as-sexual-object, while overtly a recent development, was still something Dennis had casually been thinking for years, idly enjoying their simmering homoerotic dynamic. Mac-as-meal had been a little more consciously repressed in light of all the good times they had together, only appearing as occasional intrusive thoughts that he dismissed for the most part. Now, however, with a plan in mind and Dee on board, he allowed himself to let these thoughts take him where they wanted.

You couldn’t really afford to be picky unless going for graded and packaged meat, but to Dennis’ mind there were plenty of directions prey could go too far in to be appetising. Too thin and there was nothing substantial to bite into, too fat and it got flabby and flavourless. Lean was good, but the kinds of uber-jacked beefcakes that Mac drooled over at the gym would be like trying to chew on rocks, or so Dennis imagined. Ironically, in this area alone perhaps, Mac’s body was the platonic ideal he so fiercely pictured himself. Sinewy bis and tris that would be fun to tear into, a reasonable amount of soft flesh on the torso, and – these he saw only in brief glimpses when Mac would walk from room to room halfway through getting dressed – thighs so smooth and juicy-looking that Dennis found himself running his tongue along his teeth unconsciously. When standing next to or behind him, he took the opportunity – or rather, didn’t fight the instinct – to breathe in Mac’s scent, probe past his frustrating cologne to grasp the tantalising aroma, hot blood running through his veins.

Honestly, plans aside, after his and Dee’s conversation it was more effort for Dennis to keep his hands to himself than not. And to his smug delight, the results were being seen within two days. Mac was red in the face, whipped right up into a lather, always conspicuously crossing his legs or turning away from Dennis. As he had suspected, the attention was causing turmoil in his friend, who no longer casually revealed his lust for Dennis in touches and open affection. As if Dennis’ response had given him a wake-up call as to what all that low-level sexual tension was leading to, he tried fumblingly to pull away, shut out Dennis as a corrupting influence.   
That didn’t matter. All it proved was that Dennis was close to his goal. These hastily propped up defences would only require a single forceful push, and he would be in. On the third night, he decided it was time to take Project Mousetrap to the next level.

* * *

Mac had deliberately hung back at the bar to take care of closing up, not out of a real desire to do more work, but because he wanted to delay going back to the apartment. Dennis was driving him to distraction lately. At first he’d thought Dennis was just expressing his brotherly affection when he grasped Mac’s shoulders like that, or simply admiring physical perfection when he saw Mac shirtless, but these latest touches he couldn’t explain away. He’d seen the look Dennis now gave him at every spare moment countless times before, it was the one he directed at nearly every pretty girl that walked through his field of vision. The fox wanted to bang him, and as a completely straight mouse, Mac was simply not comfortable. If Dennis was so horny for a dude, what was wrong with heading down to the Rainbow and trying his luck at a safe distance from Mac?

But then Dennis would bring the guy back to the apartment, and Mac would have to hear them through the cardboard walls, and that would drive him even further round the bend. Or he would go back to the other guy’s place, and it would be left to Mac’s imagination, picturing him getting pounded by some jacked bear, yeah, some North American grizzly pinning Dennis to the bed and having his way with him. Good God, how was Mac expected to deal with all this? Now he was turned on nearly all the time, almost always around Dennis, sometimes even around the gang.

It wasn’t that Mac didn’t love this attention on some level. Sometimes he looked at Dennis and felt such a powerful surge of longing and affection that he couldn’t help it if he leant in to kiss him a little bit, and sometimes Dennis looked so great that Mac couldn’t bring himself to look away in modesty if he exposed himself at home, and yeah, sometimes Dennis had been on his mind so much during the day that he showed up in Mac’s fantasies that night, and sometimes he would say his name when he came. In many ways, this was usual dynamic duo behaviour, the kind of thing any pair of best friends who lived out of each other’s pockets would be doing, though Mac did feel a rush of crushing sadness whenever Dennis turned away from him at the last moment, or brushed his hand away. So the fact that now Dennis seemed not only to be having these experiences himself, but having them far more strongly and openly, and clearly wanting Mac to know about it, well, Mac couldn’t deny that it was a little like being shot over the moon.

But he couldn’t keep doing this. If he did, Mac could lose control of himself one day, and then they’d all be fucked. He’d have given into these urges he so desperately repressed, and worse, Dennis would know about it. He’d probably treat it like some kind of joke – or a game. That was what all this was, just a way for Dennis to get one over him. Mac would have made his deepest most shameful desires a reality, and their friendship would be ruined forever. That was definitely 100% without a doubt what would happen.

So to prevent that, Mac decided the best course of action was wilful ignorance. Avoiding Dennis as long as he could, and being totally unresponsive when he started his ministrations, just to show how completely against this Mac was. It was with this in mind that he finished up at the bar, locked up and headed home on foot. He walked fast, trying to force himself to breathe steadily. Walking home was generally not something Mac did, simply because it was too damned far and Dennis was happy to drive them, and walking home in the dead of night was particularly reckless. Not that he had anything to worry about, of course. If anyone tried to give him any trouble, he’d make quick work of them. He just didn’t want to have to expend that much energy this late at night, if he could help it. And nothing should distract him from his current mission of completely ignoring Dennis.

He muttered the Lord’s Prayer to himself along the way anyway, just in case. And again when he found himself safe outside his apartment door, just to show polite gratitude to the Man Upstairs, not ‘cause he was extremely relieved and thanking every one of his lucky stars for sparing him getting jumped. Taking deep breaths, hoping that Dennis was probably in bed by now anyway, he opened the door.

Dennis was on the couch, very much not asleep. The lights were dimmed, a bottle of wine was on the table in front of him, a glass of which he held in his hand, and was that 80s soft rock playing in the background? Mac’s heart sank, any hopes that this would be an easy night extinguished. “You’re back,” Dennis said. “Did you walk all the way here? You must be pretty tired, have a seat.” He budged up, patting the space next to him on the couch. “Want some wine? Just opened this bottle.”

“What is, uh, happening?” Mac closed the door behind him.

“You seem tense, buddy. Hey, I’ll give you a back massage.”

Dammit, he _was_ very good at those. Mac didn’t have a choice in the matter; without realising what he was doing, he was sitting on the couch next to Dennis, who had proceeded to knead his shoulders with those superbly skilled and anatomically improbable thumbs. Incapable of doing anything else, Mac sighed and relaxed into it. He leaned back a little and Dennis’ breath tickled the nape of his neck. “Here, bro.” Dennis had poured him a glass of wine; Mac took it and sipped while the tension in his back was slowly worked out. The heady smell and taste made him drowsy; his eyes gradually fell closed. Dennis’ tail wrapped around him, warm and soft with all the obsessive combing, and this was too comfortable a position for Mac to put a stop to. Maybe there was nothing in it at all; what was a back massage between bros after all?

Then one of Dennis’ hands mysteriously disappeared from his shoulder and reappeared high on his thigh. “You’ve been working out a lot lately,” Dennis murmured from behind. “It shows.”

A week or so ago, this would have been the compliment that made Mac’s day. “That’s the… Third time you’ve told me that today,” he said. Dennis turned around in his seat so he was nearly facing Mac, and right up close to him Mac found himself – sleepily albeit – star-struck again at the face he was looking at. The intensity of those blue eyes, his cute curls, the brilliant red and orange fur of his pointed ears. He realised belatedly that Dennis was in front of him, slightly above him, hands either side of Mac’s arms, and knees planted against the couch either side of his legs. How did _that_ happen? And now Mac had basically nowhere to look but at Dennis’ dick, the outline of which had become pretty damned noticeable in those pants.

The way Dennis was looking at Mac, he felt like one of those ants burning under a microscope. He swallowed as Dennis caressed his jaw with his fingertips, melting at the contact. He was getting hard himself now, and though his usual instinct was to try and cover himself, especially with Dennis right on top of him, he found himself unable, or unwilling to move. “Dennis,” he squeaked, “I don’t know what – whatever it is you’re trying to do right now, you should know by now that I’m not, gay.”

Dennis leaned right in, giving Mac a whiff of his sweet-and-sour wine breath. “C’mon, Mac,” He purred into his ear, sending pins and needles down Mac’s neck. “Let’s stop pretending.” He was frozen with the sheer overwhelming combination of sensations bearing down on him – his ever-ringing bell of shame telling him to retreat from this, stop it before it was too late to repent, Dennis’ touches and the way he was biting his lip now twisting him into a single exposed nerve of arousal, and underneath all of it, a primal thrum of fear caused simply by the fact that a predator was straddling him against a couch. And now Dennis was moving his hands to his shirt buttons, hesitating there over Mac’s heart which thumped at a terrifying speed. He frowned and pulled away a little. “Not if you’re not interested, of course.”

Somehow Mac doubted Dennis was this mindful of verbal consent from his female conquests, but that didn’t matter. The second Dennis’ touch was gone, the paralysis left him and he was certain of what he wanted. Not thinking about his actions he grabbed at Dennis’ hand and pulled it back towards him with one hand, and brought his other hand round the back of Dennis’ head. Dennis flashed a quick grin and leant into the action, tilting Mac’s head back a little. He pressed his lips to Mac’s with a small sigh, and for a moment Mac’s mind went blank.

They were _doing_ this. It was happening for real. Dennis’ hands were running through his hair and his mouth was sweet and the smell of lust was coming off him in waves, and how had they never done this before? This was everything he’d ever dreamed of, and though he was a tightly wound ball of anxiety, he was also on cloud nine. Dennis’ kissing was impossibly gentle, even as Mac’s tongue ran into his dangerously pointed canines. His head was spinning as Dennis deepened the kiss; he hungrily kissed him back. Their bodies moved in tandem now, embracing and undressing each other at the same time. Dennis manoeuvred them away from the couch and they staggered to his bedroom tangled up in each other. By this point, Mac found that the panic had shrunk to almost nothing, eclipsed by ecstasy and maddening desire.

They detached only once they reached the bed, and Dennis fell back against it with a gasp. “I want you,” he said fiercely, eyes burning into Mac’s, running his hands down his arms, fumbling with his buttons and fly. Mac didn’t let him finish what he was trying to do, those words were enough to send him insane again and he went back to kissing Dennis, almost frantically. With the space between them closed, Dennis gave up on manipulating his jeans, and they rutted against each other

“I’ve wanted this for years,” Mac whispered into Dennis’ mouth when they stopped for breath. It was strange, how fast all his inhibitions left him once they were in the groove of it; he moved further down Dennis’ body, “Let me – I wanna suck you off, Den –”

“Right,” Dennis said, “First – maybe we should just get our own pants off at this point, I mean –”

“Yeah,” Mac said, breaking contact with Dennis reluctantly but quickly to pull off the remainder of his clothes. Dennis did the same, but before Mac could get a proper look at his cock, with a sudden strange shift in his tone, Dennis held out a hand to stop him, a little sarcastic smile on his face.

“Also, maybe the author should quit while she’s ahead.”

“What do you mean?”

Dennis gestured at the wall above them, one of the installed cameras. “She can barely bring herself to write directly about our dicks. We’d better do the rest of this off-screen.”

“What, really?” Mac was crushed.

“Don’t worry, babe. Just keep going…” He brought both his hands to Mac’s shoulders, began pulling him into an embrace, and then pushing him down to his crotch. Mac followed his lead eagerly.

“That’s as far as she’ll go, I’m willing to bet,” Dennis said, voice high and trembling, once Mac had got started.

“?”

“God, don’t stop.”

* * *

Well. Dennis wasn’t sure he could call it the greatest sex he’d ever had, but as they lay in the afterglow he couldn’t bring to mind a time when he’d felt quite so satisfied and still electrified with want. He’d gone into this fully expecting the sex element to be purely functional, playing on Mac’s desire and maybe getting off on the power, using it as a means to get what he really wanted. But the moment they’d started kissing, he was taken aback by the infectiousness of Mac’s desperate desire. When Mac took his cock in his mouth, all thoughts of the greater plan were officially out of his mind. It just felt amazing, and genuinely thrilling to finally be doing this with Mac.

They’d both fallen asleep shortly after they were spent. It was already in the small hours when they’d started, to be fair. But even on low sleep, Dennis was a naturally earlier riser than Mac, so he lay awake by his side the next morning, going over everything in his head, and watching his roommate sleep. He looked undeniably adorable like that, legs and wriggly little tail half draped over Dennis, hair falling over his face, one soft ear sticking up, the other flattened against the pillow. Things would likely be different when they woke up and Mac went through the motions of pretending he hadn’t really wanted to give Dennis one of the most enthusiastic if not skilful blowjobs he’d ever received. But for now, Dennis marvelled at how natural it felt to wake up next to Mac, and… How _nice._

Well, that was ideal, really. He was playing the long game, after all, and it ought to be a good experience for both of them. He snuggled close to Mac, pulling their bodies closer. He felt Mac’s breaths against his chest, revelled in the warmth. And he couldn’t ignore it anymore, how intoxicating Mac smelled. He’d gotten a taste of Mac’s mouth last night, not much more, but it was enough to whet his appetite in the aftermath. He opened his eyes again, letting them rest on Mac’s neck. His mouth was watering. He didn’t need to take a bite or anything, just a little taste. And he could easily disguise it in a kiss.

Mac mumbled a little in his sleep as Dennis bent over him, but the moment his tongue made contact, his eyes snapped open and he pulled away from Dennis violently. “Dude!”

“Good morning,” Dennis said, rolling onto his back.

Mac blinked, then relaxed. “Sorry about that. Reflex.”

“Don’t worry about it.” There were several things on the tip of Dennis’ tongue, but he held back from saying any of them. It was Mac’s response that was important.

Mac sighed and pulled himself up to a sitting position. “Last night was – cool,” he said. “Looks like we both needed to get laid pretty bad.” He laughed, looking at his knees. “So we know what that’s like now. We’d better not make, like, a habit of it though. Things’ll get weird.”

Dennis opened his mouth to argue, but instead nodded and smiled. Not even Mac looked convinced by those words. “Of course. We’ll chalk it up to a fun experiment.”

Mac’s resistance ended up not lasting more than two days, after which they were back in bed. Again, Dennis let Mac decide where the evening went, which resulted in Mac blowing him again, and then a little tentatively fucking him. This time, apparently quite emotional, Mac held Dennis from behind for the rest of the night, breathing slowly and contentedly. Still, when Dennis woke up, Mac was already gone. And then it was another two days of non-acknowledgment, until the sexual tension boiled over, and they did it all over again. And this one seemed to be the clincher: the following morning, Mac stayed by Dennis’ side after waking up, and when he looked at him, his eyes were all round and puppyish with affection.

Dennis gave him a curt smile, before sitting up on the side of the bed. “Well, better get going before things get weird.” He got up, not looking back to see what he was sure was a confused and crushed expression on Mac’s face. He didn’t like to do this, but it was necessary to test Mac’s commitment. If this deterred him, Dennis would be starting from square one, but if – as he suspected – this only made Mac more desperate for him, their relationship could only go from strength to strength. Which was to say, Mac would be firmly under his control.

He had a text from Dee. _Bye bye waitress._

Dennis quickly headed out of the room. _What did you do?_

_Got some outside help ;)_

* * *

Mac stayed in the hallway outside Charlie’s apartment for a long few moments. His heart was racing, his fight-or-flight response activated. It made since, seeing as he’d sat through a barrage of Charlie’s explosive grief and panic, wildly oscillating between stages of rage, hysterics and quiet fugues. And it still didn’t feel real. The Waitress wasn’t supposed to have an existence beyond being, well, a waitress, and repelling Charlie’s dogmatic advances. She was a permanent fixture in the background of their lives, and she wasn’t supposed to just suddenly disappear.

He didn’t register that he had dialled Dennis, until he picked up the phone. “How’s he holding up?” Dennis said in lieu of a greeting.

“How do you think?” Mac said hoarsely. “I can’t believe it. I didn’t think that kind of thing even happened to otters.”

Dennis sighed. “Rarely, I guess. The McPoyles are a sick, sick pack of wolves. You gonna stay there?”

“I can’t. He kicked me out. I don’t know what I did wrong.” It was the last thing Mac wanted to do, leave Charlie on his own, even if that was what he had screamed at him to do before hurling the hotplate at him. This was a goose with several near death experiences under his belt just from over-indulging in brief fits of sadness, and there was no telling what he’d do now that his primary purpose in life was gone. But Charlie right now was him at his most unreachable and unpredictable, and a big part of Mac was not willing to expose himself to more of it.

“Come home,” Dennis said. “We’ll watch a movie or something. Take your mind off it.”

“That sounds good…”After hanging up, Mac was in the process of building up a shore of justifications for why leaving Charlie by himself would actually be a perfectly fine thing to do, when Dee appeared in the corridor. “What are you doing here?” He blurted.

Dee crossed her arms, her eyes downcast. “What do you think? I’m here for him.”

“Since when do you give a shit?” It was harsh, and when Dee flinched at it Mac regretted saying it.

“Jesus, Mac, I’m not a total monster. I know what she meant to him.”

“Didn’t we all,” Mac muttered. “He’s really messed up in there. He doesn’t want to be near me, so I highly doubt he’d want to be near _you,_ considering your species.”

Dee looked more chastened than Mac thought he’d ever seen her. It was an odd look on her face, like it didn’t quite fit right. “Can I try and talk to him?”

Mac shrugged. There really wasn’t any fight in him today. “Free country.” He didn’t stick around to see what happened after Dee knocked on Charlie’s door.

It was getting dark by the time he got back to the apartment. Dennis came right up to the door to greet him, looking all concerned. “You okay?” He said.

“Yeah, I’m fine.” Mac was more than a little disoriented by this on top of Dee’s uncharacteristic sensitivity. He couldn’t complain, he supposed; he had been dreading the two of them treating the Waitress’ untimely death as no big deal at all, just another ‘fact of life’. But this was a little unnerving.

“I didn’t realise it was already so late,” Dennis said. “I would have come over and picked you up.”

“It’s only just getting dark. What, you were worried I was gonna get stabbed or something?”

“Or something.” Dennis had his hands on Mac’s shoulders, patting and rubbing down his arms, like he was verifying that he was still there and safe.

“You know me. No one could get within three feet of me with a knife.”

For once Dennis did not make an unwarranted comment on his fighting prowess. “I can’t help it,” he said. “This whole Waitress thing is a shock to me too, and it’s got me nervous. Like you could be next, or Charlie. I dunno, it’s stupid. Forget I said anything.”

Mac’s heart had grown two sizes just from hearing this, that Dennis was here caring about him like a mother hen. It was patronising as hell, sure, but come _on._ “Bro,” he said, feeling an awed smile creep onto his face, “That’s so… God, um, what’s the word…”

“Endearing?”

“Endearing, Dennis!” They had migrated to the couch, where Dennis already had _Die Hard_ ready to watch. Mac wondered for a moment why he’d not gone with their usual choice, before he realised that, yeah, a film called _Predator_ was just not the mood right now. Dennis was breaking records for considerate behaviour.

“Do you want to talk at all about Charlie?” Dennis asked.

Mac shook his head, pulling his knees onto the couch and leaning into Dennis’ shoulder. “Let’s just watch.”

Mac relaxed there for the first half of the movie or so, the comforting warmth of Dennis’ side against his cheek and his bushy tail curling round him. At some point he must have dozed off, since he came to resting against the arm of the couch, a blanket draped over him. He craned his neck up to see Dennis still drowsily watching Bruce Willis mow his way through enemies. Mac yawned, stretched out his feet so they bumped into Dennis’ lap. Dennis’ attention turned to him, his eyes half-lidded as he gave him a weary smile. His hand was right by Mac’s tail, and he’d started stroking the end of it.

It was a blissful sensation, and Mac was relaxed beyond words, but he pulled himself up into sitting on the end of the couch, separated from Dennis. He just didn’t know what to make of all this. It was one thing for Dennis and him to be banging in their spare time. Dennis was a horny fox, everyone knew that, and that was all this was to him, surely. The way he’d walked out of the room that morning, barely sparing Mac a second glance, showed that it was a physical connection utterly unconnected to their otherwise very normal, very brotherly friendship. And Mac was _fine_ with that, extremely happy in fact, since it was hard enough justifying all that gay sex to himself without having a full on romantic relationship on top of it all. All this touching and affection may feel great in the moment, but it was a slippery slope. Very soon, Dennis would be shimmying up to sit right next to him, holding Mac’s face in one hand to look intensely into his eyes, and bringing their lips together. Not all tongue and teeth driven by lust and aggression, just one good honest kiss. Ah, crap.

“Dennis,” Mac whispered when he broke away for a moment. There was this wonderful pounding ache in his chest, and it seemed to get worse the longer they kissed and looked at each other and then kissed, and Mac couldn’t get enough of it.

Eventually, Dennis pulled away for the last time. He sighed shakily, his ears flat against his head. “We’re obviously both very emotional at the moment.”

“Yeah,” Mac breathed.

“But I feel like – life’s too short, you know?” Dennis looked at Mac with real desperation. “That’s what this has told me in the end, and, and I don’t want us to spend our precious time lying. To ourselves. Each other. We’re not gonna be here forever. Mac, I want to be with you.”

The world grew blurry at the edges. “Do you mean that?” He said, lowly.

Dennis fixed him with a stare and nodded. He squeezed Mac’s knee. “Yes. I’m not afraid to say it. I know you’re not… Comfortable with all this, since you’re all _not gay_ about it, but that’s just the way I feel. You can take it or leave it, or whatever.”

“I take it,” Mac said quickly, clasping his hands over Dennis’, the pain in his chest turned to a kind of giddy joy. “I’m – I’m not afraid either, Dennis, I wanna make this a real thing.”

The second round of kissing was better than the first. Dennis breathed out a quiet joyful laugh when they were done, saying, “We really should head to bed. We are so fucking tired.”

“Definitely. It’s been… one hell of a day.” They stood up together, and there was no discussion as they headed sleepily to Dennis’ room together. Dennis was still holding onto him when they flopped onto the bed, not bothering to change clothes, and Mac lay there with Dennis’ arms round his middle, his tail covering his legs like a second blanket. His head touched the pillow with the thought that he would be sleeping here every night from now on, waking up next to Dennis, and it seemed that the world sang him to his sleep.

* * *

So, phase one – bang Mac – had been completed. Phase two – become an official item – was also complete. Mac was entirely comfortable in their new arrangement, indeed happier than Dennis had ever seen him. His volcanic rages had quieted right down, as had his obnoxiously un-self-aware rants about male physiques. And as a boyfriend, though this admittedly wasn’t a huge change from the norm, he had become an endearingly dutiful caregiver. Now that they spent far more evenings with each other, he expanded his cooking repertoire to cook the two of them dinner a few times a week. The meals were vegetarian, much to Dennis’ chagrin, but that didn’t stop him from eating them and complimenting Mac, just to see his face break out into that look of total unassuming love.

And yet, though arguably the sex was the best part of it all, Dennis began to notice a slight trend in Mac’s responses whenever he let his kisses trail away from his lips and over his neck and chest, or when he was the one to go down on him, and most of all, whenever he let his teeth graze the skin. Even as he moaned in pleasure or gasped encouragements for Dennis to keep going, folded in between all the other scents, there was the barest undertone of fear. Dennis wasn’t sure how aware of it Mac even was, or if it was just a subconscious instinctual reaction to a predator’s canines, but either way, it gave Dennis an idea of how to push him further.

It started in the middle of a blowjob. “God, Mac,” Dennis said. “You taste so good.” He swiped his tongue across Mac’s balls, heard his breath catch. Then, quite slowly, Dennis moved his mouth away from Mac’s cock to his inner thigh, which he bit. Not hard enough to break skin yet, but a definite bite. The taste from that alone was stunning, and he growled low in his throat, licking at the spot before biting it again, this time a little harder. Mac had suddenly gone quite still and silent.

Dennis pretended not to notice. Mac was still not resisting him in any way. He explored a little further down, worrying at the tender flesh with his teeth and tongue, until he got a minute salty tang of blood. The thrill of that consumed him for a moment, but this was apparently Mac’s limit, because his legs spasmed, and he said quietly, “Could you cut that out?”

“What’s the problem, baby boy?”

“The, the biting and stuff.”

“ _Biting?_ You call that biting?” Dennis bent his head down again. “I just wanna kiss you all over. See what you taste like…”

Mac stiffened and pulled himself away from Dennis to sit upright. “Okay, that too. I’m not comfortable with… All this…” He couldn’t seem to articulate it, or was unwilling to. He’d gone red in the face and his whiskers were quivering. Dennis was tempted to let him struggle a little longer, but decided to help him out. He feigned an expression of understanding and realisation.

“ _Oh._ This is about me being a predator.” He smiled at Mac, adding dryly, “You think I’m gonna take a bite _out_ of you or something?”

Mac laughed once in response, but wouldn’t meet his eyes. “Of course not, that’s ridiculous. But…”

“But what?”

“Look, you can’t blame me for being a little worried,” Mac said, his voice tight. “All those girls you’ve had those _dinner dates_ with, where you bang ‘em and eat ‘em like it’s nothing. And I know it’s just your dirty talk, but sometimes when you say that stuff in bed and you uh, kiss me like _that,_ it actually sounds like you… Like you wanna…”

“Mac.” Dennis had pulled himself up to look at Mac directly, and at the seriousness in his tone, Mac met his eyes. There was fear in them, but mostly Mac looked embarrassed. “I had no idea you were feeling like that,” Dennis said, pouring as much sincerity as he could muster into the words. “But you have to believe me when I say that I would _never_ harm you. And how could you compare what we’ve got here to some chick I have for a one time fling-and-feast?” He squeezed Mac’s leg under the covers. “You mean so much more to me than that.”

“I know,” Mac said, like it wasn’t a big deal, but Dennis could see that this comment pleased him a lot. “But we’re still, like, what we are.”

“I seem to remember you saying those labels don’t count between us,” Dennis said. He brought himself closer to Mac’s face, staring intensely into his eyes. “I need to know that you trust me, Mac. If we’re going to be together, I can’t have you afraid that I’ll just up and kill you.”

Mac shook his head. “Of course not. I trust you.”

“You don’t sound convinced.”

“What do you want to hear?” Mac said, desperate. “I love you more than anything. I’d trust you with my life, Dennis. It was just a stupid reaction, we can go back to the sex now.”

“But maybe you’re right. We are what we are, after all. Can’t fight nature.” His eyes narrowed. “What do _you_ want to hear from me, Mac? That you smell delicious?” He leaned in and took a long sniff, closing his eyes. “That deep down, all I really want is to hold you down and eat you bit by bit?”

Mac breathed in and out shakily. “Do you?” The smell of fear was thick now, but he did not push Dennis away or even move to protect himself.

“If you really trust me, you know the answer to that yourself,” Dennis said. “And you’ll let me do this.” He closed his mouth over Mac’s neck and slowly ran his teeth along the surface. The pulse raced below his tongue, and as he licked across his throat below the Adam’s apple, Mac shuddered. Dennis lingered there for a moment, enjoying the taste and the mingled fear and lust radiating off his future meal, before pulling away. “See?” he said. “No harm done.”

Mac’s chest rose and fell rapidly, his eyes were wide; for a moment he seemed lost for words. “… Safe,” he said eventually, half a question.

Dennis nodded. “Exactly, safe. And, once you let go of that fear, you have to admit…” He leant back in to lick his neck again and press down with his teeth, causing Mac to breathe in sharply. “It’s pretty hot,” Dennis said, muffled.

Mac swallowed. “You’re saying we should embrace our roles in the food chain as, like, a kink?”

Dennis moved his hand to start stroking Mac’s cock as he continued to work on his neck with his mouth. “Just relax into it. Let yourself feel it…” He gradually moved away from Mac’s neck and upper shoulder to explore his chest. “There’s a kind of power in it. Placing yourself at the mercy of someone who could and in any other scenario would have you as their meal.” He bit Mac’s nipple, smiled around it at the high-pitched squeak. “But knowing I won’t. In a way, we’re sticking it to the status quo.” He pulled his head up again to look Mac in the eye, stopped his movements. “You understand where I’m coming from here?”

Dennis found himself pushed back down. “Yeah I get it,” Mac hissed, “Just keep going – oh, _Dennis –”_ He came with a choked off cry. Dennis sighed and relaxed against his chest, a deep feeling of satisfaction spreading through him, along with a twinge of disappointment that it was over already. But it looked like his gamble had paid off here, and he had plenty to look forward to.

“How was that, huh?” he asked, just to be sure of Mac’s response.

Mac sat up. He looked dazed, slowly blinking, eyes big and a little wet, just from the overwhelming mix of sensations. “Good,” he said.

“That’s what I thought,” Dennis said with a smile, showing his canines.

From here, Dennis continued to push the boundaries of Mac’s survival instinct in bed, ‘proving’ their unbreakable trust by sampling different areas of his boyfriend’s body. Mac’s fear did not completely dissipate, even after he affirmed his trust in Dennis multiple times. But through Dennis’ careful conditioning, he was able to get Mac enjoying it at the same time, and it was that tension that Dennis found endlessly stimulating, even more than getting free previews of their grand finale. Feeling Mac’s heart jackhammer in his chest and smelling his fear, and hearing him moan in pleasure and beg Dennis not to stop was enough to finish Dennis off with virtually no further assistance. He deliberately maintained a sense of uncertainty, reassuring Mac at every given moment that he was in no danger, but occasionally breaking the charade just for moments at a time, to compliment his flavour, or let him know under his breath what he’d _really_ like to do to him.

“Just wanna crunch these up,” he said, in between sucking Mac’s thumb and fingers, “They’d be like five little treats.” Or, every once in a while, apparently by accident, he’d draw a little blood, and take a second to savour it in his mouth, licking it off his teeth.

While banging Mac or getting him off, he’d be planning the trajectory of his eventual dinner. What was clear now was that simply tearing Mac’s throat out first and eating his carcass wouldn’t suffice, not when Mac tasted his best when all those emotions were warring inside him and oozing out in delicious pheromones. He’d probably start by picking at his limbs, very easy for Mac to stay alive through that. There were specific areas Dennis was finding particularly delectable, too – the soft flesh beneath his ribcage, around his crotch and the dip in his pelvis, the mouth-watering place where his thighs met his ass – even the slightly thicker base of his tail, but that was mostly because of the reaction he got out of Mac when he explored it with his tongue.

All this would be running through Dennis’ head while they were in the sack, but once both of them were spent and lying in each other’s arms, and Mac nuzzled into his chest with a contented sigh, he found himself enjoying the moment for what it was, which was just… nice. It was a weird situation, to be thinking of other things while they were actually banging, but be completely in the present while they were cuddling, but he supposed it made sense. After all, he’d get to bang plenty of people after Mac was gone, but he’d only get to hold and be held by Mac for a little while longer.

* * *

“Uh, what’s that on your neck, dude?” Mac tried to adjust his collar instinctively, but Charlie swatted his hand away. “Are those teeth marks?”

“Never seen a hickey before, Charlie?” They were in Charlie’s apartment, eating mixed seeds and cheese out of plastic bags on their knees. It felt like a long time since Mac had been there, though it couldn’t have been more than a few weeks. Dennis had so quickly consumed all of his time, ever since that first night together.

“Yeah, but those are the – the pointy ones!” Charlie mimed where in his mouth the canines would be. “Plus there are tons of them, like _all_ over your neck.” His eyes widened. “Did Dennis bite you? That’s severely messed up.”

“No, it’s not,” Mac said. “Everyone bites during sex. He doesn’t even break the skin – you know what, I don’t have to talk about this shit with you.”

Charlie shook his head. “No, man. It is _not_ the same when a pred does that to a prey and you know it.”

“You’re overreacting.”

“Am I? Cause from where I’m standing, you’d probably let Dennis cut your tail off and hang it on his wall if he wanted to, and now he’s, like, literally eating you –”

“It’s not like that!” Mac argued, his cheeks hot. “It’s just something we use to make it a bit more fun. Power plays and stuff, you wouldn’t get it. We have safe-words and everything, it’s all very consensual.”

Charlie recoiled, feathers standing up on end. “Yeesh. No offence, dude, but your relationship weirds me the fuck out.”

“Well, you don’t have to understand it.” It was a lame-ish retort, especially since Mac wasn’t sure he understood it either. “And you’re one to talk anyway.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“You think I haven’t noticed how much time you spend with Dee these days? Here I thought you wanted to cut ties with those nasty predators, Charlie.”

Charlie squared his shoulders, speaking through a mouthful of seeds. “Right, so I was wrong about Dee. Sue me, can’t a guy be wrong sometimes?”

“Sure. I mean, you wanna talk _weird,_ it’s beyond me what on earth you find attractive in a vixen like her. But who am I to try and stop you from doing what makes you happy?”

Charlie looked at Mac sidelong, chewing his seeds reflectively. “Are you happy, then?”

“Dude. You have no idea.” He and Dennis had never been closer. The sex wasn’t just a good time, it had actually helped them understand each other and trust each other in a way they’d never managed to do before. He got to have Dennis touching him nearly all the time now, looking at him more and more with unmasked adoration. Mac couldn’t have been happier if Chase Utley wrote back that day to schedule a date for their catch, but more achingly wonderful than that was how happy Dennis was. He’d talked in passing about the hole inside him which he never seemed to be able to fill, and there were times that Mac could see that hole in his eyes, like a door to an abyss swinging open and closed. But these days, when Dennis looked at him, there was real satisfaction there, a blissful contentment and enthusiasm for the time they were sharing.

Dennis had even stopped hunting, or as far as Mac was aware he had done. Since he was no longer interested in chasing women for sex, he seemed to have also lost the appetite for them, period. And, though he’d turned a blind eye to it in the past, Mac couldn’t deny that this was a relief to him. To know that Dennis had, all those times, been acting out of a need to fill his emptiness, and that now that Mac was doing exactly that, fling-and-feasts were no longer necessary. Mac had done that, that little good thing, and it was a real sign that Dennis _loved_ him.

So maybe he still got a little nervous when Dennis bit hard enough to make little red spots of blood appear on Mac’s neck and chest. He didn’t mind that, and had learned to like it, because that was all part of the Dennis Reynolds package. That thread of darkness and danger, wrapped in the tenderness and affection and beauty – that was Dennis, and Mac got to have all of him.

But that didn’t mean he couldn’t make time for Charlie too, and he ended up staying well into the night. He listened idly to his childhood friend rant about the various strange things that were so important to him, lost in a serene haze. When Charlie eventually pushed at Mac to get up and go home already so he could do his night time rituals, Mac left the building still in that state. He breathed in a satisfying gulp crisp night air, before starting his walk home with a full heart. Life was good, and he had nothing to fear.

* * *

On the street corner were three tomcat bruisers in the process of mugging some poor fucker who’d made the mistake of walking in South Philly by night. From the safety of his car, Dennis felt all right watching a little while, to see what was going on. He cut the engine, rolled down the window, and with a horrible drop in his stomach, realised that it was Mac. Mac, facing off against three cats, all twice his size. Dennis froze for a moment, watching the scene unfold. “Stay back,” Mac ordered, and it wasn’t really his fault his voice was such a squeak but it sure didn’t help, “Or I’ll karate chop you into oblivion.”

Predictably, his assailants laughed. They stood at a little distance from him, across which he was now doing some strange preparatory karate-dance, arms raised in a combat stance, and, okay, Dennis needed to rescue his dumb mouse boyfriend before it was too late. For their part, the cats seemed mostly amused by the situation, rather than angry and erratic like most muggers would be – because, it hit Dennis like a slam on the breaks, they _weren’t_ there to mug Mac. This was worse than he could have pictured.

As if in direct answer to his thoughts, the largest of the three cats suddenly lunged forward, his moves too fast for Mac to even think of dodging, grabbed the mouse’s neck and pinned him against the wall, feet suspended off the ground. Dennis swore and fumbled frantically with his car door, staggered out and rushed headlong at them, nothing but blind panic on his mind. The cats’ voices became clearer – “Quick, hand me the chloroform while I got him still –” as Dennis locked eyes with Mac, and bellowed mere inches behind the top cat,

“Get your stinking paws off him, you damn dirty cats.”

Oh God, it sounded far, far less cringe-worthy in his head. Fortunately the surprise alone was enough to make the other cats bounce back, teeth bared, and the one in front to drop Mac. Now that Dennis was here, seeing the knives in all their hands, he cursed mentally. He hardly stood much more of a chance than Mac in taking them on. Intimidation would have to work instead, which may be a tall order after quoting a movie from the ‘60s. “Yeah, that’s right. That’s my private property, and you’re trespassing. You’d be better off finding yourself someone else.” Mac said nothing, thankfully, but his eyes damn near popped out of his skull at the words _private property._ Dennis focused on making his face as thunderous as possible, bringing out his best Kubrick eyes.

Already one of the follower cats was folding, clearly affected by the expression on Dennis’ face. “Sorry, we didn’t know this was –”

“Shut it, Lenny!” The head cat hissed to his lackey, before addressing Dennis with a sneer, “We found this rodent out in the open, fair and square. How’re you gonna stop us taking him?”

So intimidation was a bust. Grasping at the nearest idea that presented itself, Dennis changed his tack, letting his shoulders sag and sighing. He’d better hope that these felines were as stupid as they looked. “God damn it, I didn’t want to have to do this. You’re right, there’s nothing I can do to stop you, but there’ll be all kinds of trouble and paperwork if you eat him, plus I can’t account for the damage it’ll do to your bodies, and I just wanted to avoid getting into all that –”

“Wait, wait, our bodies?” The third cat said, voice cracking a little. “What are you talking about?”

Dennis pinched the bridge of his nose, as if the information was hard to part with. “He’s terminally ill,” Dennis explained. “Insides are like toxic waste. Got deemed unfit for consumption, can’t donate blood, the whole package.” He twirled a finger round his temple, trying not to look at Mac, whose expression seemed to be jumping between outraged and admiring. “Also has a few screws loose, goes around claiming to be a karate champion. I’m supposed to be taking care of him, and also taking care of the public, by keeping him nice and distant. I lost track of him. Anyway, bottom line is, I wouldn’t go near him if I were you.”

The cats were stupefied by the barrage of information, looking between Mac and Dennis in bewilderment, while Mac stared ahead with the same emotion in his face. “That’s bullshit,” one declared eventually, but his voice was not entirely convinced. “Look at him, he’s perfectly healthy. You just don’t want us stealing your meal.”

“Why would _I_ want to eat that? You think I wanna get cancer? And I said his _insides_ were screwed up. It’s not showing on the outside yet.” He gave a long exasperated sigh. “But if it’s proof you want, I can call the doctor up and have him explain everything.” He took out his phone, began scrolling through the contacts.

Lenny spoke up again. “Guys, if he’s not kidding around, I don’t wanna risk getting poisoned.”

“I’ve got his documents back at the apartment,” Dennis added. “I could show them to you, you’d have to come with me a little way, but if it’ll make you believe me...” He allowed himself a small discreet smile at the long silence after his words. He’d done it.

“No, that… Won’t be necessary,” the head cat said quietly. His face darkened; he pushed Mac against the wall hard, making the mouse yelp. Jabbing the knife in his face, he growled, “Better empty your pockets instead then, cause we’re not leaving empty handed.”

“Oh, come on,” Mac groaned.

“Do what he says, pal,” Dennis said, a little vindicated that Mac was going to pay at least little for his stupidity. Reluctantly, Mac handed over his pocket change, and once the would-be hunters had finally left them be, Dennis couldn’t quite hide a huge sigh of relief. Mac, for his part, had a fairly nonchalant expression, obviously trying to play it cool, but the shaking of his limbs and the lingering scent of fear said otherwise.

“You god damned idiot,” Dennis said. “How have you survived this long?”

“It wasn’t my fault!” Mac snapped. “That shit never happens to me, what was I supposed to do?”

“Carry mace? Learn some form of self-defence other than your bullshit pseudo karate? Avoid shady places after dark? Take _any_ basic precautions a self-respecting prey animal would when leaving the house?”

Mac reddened. “I had that situation completely under control, bro –”

“If I had not been driving past in that exact moment, you’d be cat food right now,” Dennis said flatly. “You’re seriously gonna try and claim you’re capable of looking after yourself?”

“I –” Mac’s shoulders slumped. “I don’t know what happened. I guess I just let my guard down.”

“You sure did.” Now that the initial panic and annoyance was fading, Dennis found a kind of pleasure replacing it. He’d saved Mac’s life, and proven that the mouse couldn’t be trusted to keep himself safe. He’d rely on Dennis now, and even better, he’d see Dennis from this point as a source of protection, never of danger. It was time to make that final push, tilt the balance of Mac’s trust firmly in his favour. He sighed, looking away from Mac. “No, it’s not your fault. I’m not trying to victim blame here, it’s just…” Mac was looking at him wide-eyed; just for a little effect, Dennis added a slight tremble to his voice. “I was so scared for a moment there, babe. I let you out of my sight, and just like that, you could have been gone forever.”

And all that work, just for some cats to reap the rewards. That thought caused real tears to spring to Dennis’ eyes. Mac gasped at the display of emotion. “Dude, I’m sorry. Honestly, this was a one-off, you don’t need to worry about me.”

Dennis nodded. “You’re right, it was. Cause I’m not gonna let _anything_ like that happen to you again. As long as you’re with me, I can guarantee you preds won’t come near you.”

Mac raised his eyebrows. “Uh, that’s really, well, noble of you Dennis but don’t you think it’s a little… Overbearing?”

“Overbearing? Mac, you almost _died._ If it means keeping you safe, I’m willing to do whatever it takes.” The words felt strange in his mouth, and he heard how weird they sounded. Mac seemed to think so too, cocking his head to the side.

“And I appreciate that. But I’m pretty sure the reason I let my guard down in the first place is, well, cause of you.” They’d begun walking back to the apartment, Dennis with his arm round Mac’s shoulders, and Mac was now looking steadfastly at the ground. “Being with you, doing that stuff in bed, it’s made me a little complacent I guess. I’m forgetting that not all predators are like you and Dee.”

“Huh,” Dennis said, and for some reason, behind the awareness that this was exactly what he’d wanted, something uncomfortable stirred in his gut.

Mac sighed and leaned into Dennis’ neck. “Thanks for getting me out of that jam.”

* * *

Later, in Dee’s apartment sharing a bottle of scotch, he recounted the story. “It was perfect timing,” Dennis said. “I thought I was gonna have to do something drastic myself to fully gain his trust, but those cats did it for me.”

Dee laughed. “Oh my _God._ Just imagine if you hadn’t gotten there in time, though, huh? This whole plan would have been for nothing.” She grinned, showing her yellow fangs. “For you, anyway. I meanwhile have sealed the deal on my end.”

“Good job. So you’ve banged?”

“Twice, now,” Dee said proudly. “The Waitress may as well be a distant memory.”

“Well, I gotta say. Hats off to us and our commitment.” They clinked glasses.

“So, I guess we’ll be moving in to the final phase shortly,” Dee said. “When are we both free? We’ll definitely wanna synch this up.”

It was such a sudden strong reaction, a squeezing round his chest that Dennis couldn’t immediately identify as either fear or excitement. “What?”

“Uh, hello? The hunt? The part we’ve literally been doing all this for? It’s been about a month now, right?”

“Right,” Dennis said. “But who says we have to do it for exactly a month? I mean, aren’t you having fun with Charlie?”

Dee stared at him. “If you’re asking about the sex, I can’t say it’s the best. The guy barely knows what he’s supposed to do.”

“Fine, not the sex, then, but the – the thrill of the chase.” Dennis was babbling, confusing himself with how alarmed he suddenly felt. “I just feel like we could get more out of this, still. Don’t you want to test Charlie’s limits like I did with Mac? And with me, well, I have Mac’s trust, but maybe I could push him even further. If I play it right, I could have him bearing his throat for me willingly when the time comes. If we keep this going for a few more weeks, then –”

“I don’t know what all this is,” Dee interrupted, “But last I checked, I just waited four god damned weeks to eat a meal. I’m not interested in waiting any longer than that. And I’m not gonna let you ruin it by pushing your luck trying to get Mac to sacrifice himself.”

“ _Me?_ Pushing _my_ luck?”

“Yeah, asshole. If I’m understanding your fucked up dynamic correctly, the guy only trusts you so much because you _don’t_ present a threat to his existence. And now you’re his protector, or whatever. You really think you can get him to override his most basic survival instinct, cause he has the hots for you?”

“He doesn’t just have the hots for me,” Dennis argued. “He is totally in love with me.”

Dee’s eyes widened, her mouth falling open. “Oh, _hell_ no.”

“What is it now?”

“Do _not_ tell me you went and got cold feet just cause you caught some feelings.” Dennis choked on his sip of scotch. Dee groaned. “ _God damn it_. I should have known this was what would happen. So you get to have a great time falling in love with a mouse, while I have to pretend to be sexually attracted to a goose, and neither of us does what we’ve been intending to do for literal decades.”

“I have not fallen in love with Mac,” Dennis said shortly. “I just… Enjoy him.” He’d enjoyed this month possibly more than any of the months that had preceded it. The power trip outstripped all his previous attempts at creating that feeling, and of course the sex-slash-taste-testing was a pleasure in itself. But more than any of this, he did just enjoy Mac. He liked having him to himself. He liked being looked after by him, being touched and looked at with adoration. He liked seeing Mac close-up, all his expressions and emotions laid bare on the surface. Everything that came out of him Dennis was entranced by, from his boyish excitement to his wounded puppy-dog eyes, from his ecstatic moans to his shaky breaths. And this spreading satisfied feeling in his chest that Dennis associated usually with good sex and a hearty meal, he was starting to feel it all the time around Mac, even when they were just hanging out like they always had. And in those contexts the feeling felt a little less like basic carnal satisfaction, and more like wholeness. But Dee was asking for a scratch with that love talk. This wasn’t love, because Dennis didn’t _do_ love.

Loving Mac would mean committing to him. It would mean facing the half of himself that wanted to rip Mac in two. It would possibly mean facing Mac finding out about that half – and then it would mean being left by Mac, or worse. No, Dennis did not love Mac, because the mere thought of that sent a bolt of terror through him so strong he forgot his own species and saw himself a frightened prey animal on the run.

“Whatever you say,” Dee said, resting her head on her hands. “I’m not gonna try and change your mind. It was your idea anyway. I guess I’ll figure out something with Charlie, but honestly, if you’re not doing it…”

“Don’t be ridiculous. The scheme goes ahead as planned. And you’re right, the time to do it is now. Let’s set a date.”

“Oh, seriously? _Good,_ thank God. Shall we say three days, starting from tomorrow?” Dee raised an eyebrow. “Enough time to say our goodbyes.”

“Three days,” Dennis said, the words falling like an iron curtain on the future, a closed bracket within which he could play out this funny little illusion. “We’re on.”

These three days, Dennis decided to fill with as much enjoying as he could. What little of his attention Mac did not previously have, he did now. He took on the role of feeding them both, paying special attention to Mac’s diet. The higher proportion of healthy home cooked meals had made him particularly trim of late, which was all fine, but if Dennis was being honest, he could afford to soften up a little before their big night. He bought a stash of sugary desserts from the patisserie, and left them aesthetically in the centre of the kitchen table, he gave Mac larger servings and added extra salt, nothing too extreme. Mac, for his part, was taken aback by the apparent switching of roles, but seemed charmed by Dennis’ newfound joy in domestic caregiving.

“Is it our anniversary or something?” He asked the first time he woke up to find Dennis already in the kitchen serving a fry up of eggs and mushrooms.

“We’ve been going out for less than a month, bro.”

“Really?” Mac had a soft, dreamlike smile on his face. Dennis took a mental snapshot of it. “Feels like longer.”

On the second day, Dennis told Mac he loved him. Oddly enough, it was not something he had planned. They’d been cuddling on the couch, in their preferred position, with Mac’s head nestled in the crook of Dennis’ neck, their tails curled around each other. “Can you believe Dee and Charlie actually paired up, man?” Mac said.

“I know,” Dennis said. “Feels weird. To each their own, I guess. That goes for both of them.”

“It’s funny, though,” Mac said softly against his chest. “Cause that means we all ended up dating each other after everything. All within the gang.”

Dennis made a face. “When you put it like that it sounds weirdly incestuous.”

“I kind of like it that way. Like, we don’t need anyone but just the four of us.”

“You think so?” Dennis said, lightly.

Mac nodded, gesturing disparagingly to the world around them. “No one else can stand us and we can’t stand anyone else.”

“Right.” It meant nothing. Mac said stupid things on an hourly basis. But still, Dennis couldn’t help feeling like something in his words had struck a chord in him, and it was still resonating when Mac mumbled,

“Love you, bro.”

And before his mind could catch up with what was happening, something squeezed around Dennis’ heart and the words fell out. “I love you too.”

Day three went normally enough. Dee and Dennis were a little quieter than usual in the bar, watching Mac and Charlie natter away, the childhood friends enjoying each other’s company and getting on each other’s nerves. It was the last time they’d be able to do that after all, not that they knew it. There was a strange anxiety churning up Dennis’ insides as Mac made some outlandish claim, or Charlie expounded on esoteric topics at the top of his voice. He met Dee’s eye a couple of times and knew she was feeling it too. It was strong enough that on two occasions he was overcome with the desire to back out there and then, tell Dee it was over, no questions asked, and they could all go back to doing what they had done before. But each time, he suppressed the urge. It was just his fear of change talking. Since, ultimately, what was about to go down was the natural course of life. He should relax and enjoy it. It was what he was made to do, what Mac was really made to do for him.

When the bar was finally closing and they went their separate ways, he locked eyes with Dee a last time, right before she disappeared out the door with Charlie. She gave him a firm nod which he returned. It was, at last, time.

* * *

“What’s the plastic sheet for?”

“I didn’t wanna make a mess on the sheets tonight.”

Mac raised his eyebrows. “O- _kay…_ Seems like it’ll be a little uncomfortable, though.”

“It’ll be fine, don’t worry,” Dennis said. “Just go with the flow. I got something special planned.”

Mac’s face lit up. He didn’t even think to ask what the something was, or how a plastic sheet could possibly factor into it. Generally, he liked to let Dennis lead the way with their sexual experiments, so without questioning, he jumped up on to the bed, the sheet crinkling beneath him. They had both already shelled their clothes; Dennis closed the door behind them.

They’d done bondage a couple of times, so Mac needed no convincing to get his wrists in the ropes. Dennis tied them securely to both sides of the bedframe, leaving Mac in a thematically appropriate crucifixion pose. The ropes were soft, and Dennis made sure not to make the bonds too tight. Wouldn’t want Mac to be uncomfortable after all. He was lying there breathing heavily, eyes shining in anticipation. Dennis paused after tying him down to look him over in entirety. He ran a hand all the way from Mac’s collarbone, down the side of his ribcage to rest on his thigh, feeling him shiver under the gentle touch. He bent forward to inhale the scent, as he had done so many times before, only now there was nothing to hold back. “You trust me, don’t you Mac?”

“Of course I do.”

Dennis leaned in, nibbled at the shell of Mac’s ear. “Well, you shouldn’t,” he growled. “Cause tonight I’m gonna eat you, baby boy.”

Mac gasped. “Oh… _Yes,_ eat me! Take me and, and swallow me whole, you sexy predator.”

“No, Mac.” Dennis had pulled himself back up. Mac did not look afraid in the slightest, nor did he smell so. He did look a little confused, however.

“Sorry, would you rather I…?” He suddenly began to struggle violently in the restraints, crying out, “Oh, no! Help me! A scary predator has me tied up and he’s going to eat me aaaah –”

“It’s not a game, Mac,” Dennis sighed. “Tonight’s the night. I’ve been planning this dinner for so long, you know?”

Mac had nothing to fear. He knew this, just like he always knew it, every time Dennis did something like this. But even all those other times, there had been a part of him resisting, a single alarm bell ringing with all its might. Tonight it was louder than ever as Dennis sat on him and coldly ran his eyes down his body. It was just so different from the way he’d been acting these past few days, so lacking in passion, and Mac couldn’t help it. “No, I don’t… Red,” he sputtered. “Can we just time-out here for a second – I need to know that this is roleplay. Or a joke or whatever.” He swallowed his nerves, embarrassment colouring his cheeks. “Sorry to kill the mood, just. To be clear, this is definitely 100% a joke?” And shit, he did _not_ mean to sound that desperate. It didn’t matter. Dennis always understood about this.

Dennis clicked his tongue and shook his head. “Not even a little bit.” The side of his mouth twitched into a sort-of smile. “Though it is kind of funny how you fell for everything before.”

Mac was now having a little difficulty squashing the panic rising in his chest. “You – that was the safe-word, Dennis, you have to listen to me.”

“No I don’t. But, hey, if thinking this is roleplay makes you feel better about the situation, I won’t try and convince you otherwise.” Dennis moved away from Mac’s chest, noticing how his heart was thumping away in it. He examined his right hand, held firmly in place, and forced Mac to unclench his fist. He stroked his pinky with his thumb and forefinger. This would show him for sure, he just didn’t want to do too much damage so early in the process. “Now, I usually like to start from the outside and work my way towards the middle.” He closed his mouth over the little finger. “Let’s see…”

“What are you doing? Wh-” Mac cut himself off with a cry of pain and shock. “Jesus, that _hurt!_ ” He looked over at Dennis and his blood turned to ice. He’d bitten the top of his little finger off. He licked round his mouth to lap up the blood, chewed the half-digit slowly, and looked right at Mac.

“Oh,” he said as he swallowed. _“_ That’s nice.”

“You just – I can’t believe you just –” The pain didn’t feel real yet, a strange distant throb in his hand. Neither did the thing he was looking at. A fog was filling Mac’s brain; he was frozen. “Untie me,” he muttered. “I’m fucking serious, Dennis, untie me right now.”

Dennis smiled; it was finally sinking in, then. “Not happening, buddy. And stop kidding yourself, okay?” He gnawed at the stump a little, slurping up the blood pumping from it. “Face it… You knew this was coming. What else was going to happen here?”

“No,” Mac whined, desperately trying to pull his hand away as Dennis continued to take little bites out of it. “No no no no. We… We _talked_ about it. You told me I was different, that you’d _never…_ ”

Dennis stared at him earnestly. “You _are_ different, Mac! You think I would go to this kind of effort for anyone else?” Still not wanting to let Mac lose too much blood, and eager to get into the really good stuff, he moved on from the crunchy fingers to tuck into his forearm. Mac shrieked as Dennis sunk his teeth into the chewy-yet-pliable meat, and his eyes closed for a moment in ecstasy at the texture and the rich taste. And this was just his _arm._ “You’re going to be the most memorable meal of my life,” he sighed. “And I want you to be here for as much of it as you can, so I’m gonna take it nice and slow. Savour every last bit of you.”

Mac’s eyes were tightly shut; he whimpered as Dennis’ tongue roamed slowly over the throbbing wounds. “Please…”

“Please what?”

“Stop. Den, stop all this right now, I don’t wanna...”

“Oh, but _I_ wanna.” The fear was pouring out of Mac now in waves; Dennis couldn’t get enough of it. He left his arm alone for the moment to rake his teeth along his neck, close to where the pheromone glands were, and right next to his racing pulse and shaky breaths. “You’re so delicious, you know?” he murmured. “Of course you know. That tough guy act doesn’t come from nowhere. Not feeling so tough now, though, right?” He licked and nibbled Mac’s throat the way he’d done so many times, and sure enough, another scent of lust appeared unbidden, nearly drowned out by the terror. “Does that feel good? Are you scared, Mac?” It wasn’t a question that needed an answer, but he wanted to hear it.

“Yes,” Mac said, his voice hoarse. There were tears in his eyes as he tried to glare at Dennis. “You win, Dennis! Okay! You got me, I’m terrified, now just let me go.” His last words broke off with a sob, and Dennis shuddered at a wave of pleasure.

“ _God,_ that’s hot.” However much he wanted to, he stopped himself from taking a proper bite out of Mac’s neck. Instead, he let his mouth travel down to his clavicle, then his upper arm, where he resumed the feast, taking small but substantial bites of some of the nicest meat he’d ever tasted.

The shock was fading and the pain had now reached Mac fully. He was screaming, unable to stop, a white noise filling his head. Most of his thoughts were an endless stream of red-hot agony, but somehow worse than that was the shattered feeling in his chest. All he could see in front of him was Dennis lapping the blood off his arm and tearing into the meat, and none of this made sense, still, but with each burst of pain it was sinking in.

All this time, this was what he’d wanted. Dennis hadn’t touched his chest yet, but the horror of it may as well have been a stab wound, may as well have been Dennis gorging himself on his beating heart. Every touch, every kiss, all of it just so Dennis could have a particularly memorable hunt. To think he’d thought he meant something important to him, to think he’d thought he’d _changed_ him, brought out his truly loving side. To think he’d thought he’d ever been anything other than food to the guy who’d been his best friend for twenty god damned years.

Some of the fog cleared a little, bringing both the pain and the sound of what was happening into sharper focus. A terrible wet sound of chewing and slurping, and now Dennis’ voice.

“You know the best part of this?” He was saying, grinning down at Mac with a chin covered in dark red. He seemed to have gotten bored of his arm now, which was just as well since Mac thought it might have gone numb. He pinched at Mac’s belly, probed at the soft flesh with his tongue. “I’ve spent these past weeks exploring you in so much depth, I already know which parts of you I like the best. Should I grab a bite there, or save them for last?” He took an experimental bite from Mac’s flank, drawing a yelp from him. “Better have them now. They won’t be as fresh by the end.”

Mac’s head had cleared enough for him to articulate words, though they came out quiet and uneven. “Think… Think about this,” he gasped, as Dennis gnawed around his hips. “You do this, and I’m dead, right. You can’t seriously wa-AAaagh- want that. Who else is gonna peel your apples and make you breakfast and stand up for –Ohgod- stand up for you in arbitration…” He tried to wriggle away; Dennis stopped him by pushing down on his stomach with one hand, while pulling his leg up with the other, to reach his haunches. “Come on, you said you love me,” he begged, “Don’t do this just ‘cause you’re hungry…”

Dennis stopped for a moment, holding Mac’s legs in the air. “It’s true, yeah,” he said quietly. “I’m gonna miss having you around. Charlie, too.” That twisting feeling was back in his gut for a moment, but God, Mac tasted way too good for him to care at that moment. He’d mourn later. “But all things come to an end,” he said. “We’ll need to find some new friends, won’t we? Preferably preds this time. You guys just aren’t built to last.”

“Wait,” Mac said, feeling a heavy stone in his gut. “Wait, Charlie? What do you…”

“Oh, didn’t I explain?” Dennis looked at him innocently framed between his thighs. “Dee’s in on this too, she’s been seducing Charlie so she can have him. Pretty sure she’s with him right now, chowing down on his feathery ass.” He chuckled, rolling his eyes, like they were bitching about his sister in a perfectly normal context. “Really starting to think she does have an avian fetish.”

Tears rolled down Mac’s cheeks. “Oh God no. Charlie, no.”

“You’ll be with him again soon.”

“ _No-!”_ Mac struggled and screamed again as Dennis started to dig into his thighs. Having spent so much time exploring the area with his tongue, finally getting to rip some of that tender, juicy meat away was cathartic beyond belief. He decided he may as well let Mac know how much he was getting into it and moaned in delight. He was more adventurous with his bites now, still carefully avoiding major arteries, but tearing away sizeable chunks of flesh. Mac had screamed himself raw, and now shook uncontrollably, weakly sobbing as Dennis indulged himself.

“Did I mention,” Dennis said, after laving the bloody mess of Mac’s legs with his tongue to staunch the bleeding a little. “I’ve wanted to do this ever since we met? I knew you’d turn out great. You can just tell these things sometimes.”

“God, why… why’d I ever trust you…” Mac’s voice was shot, the words barely audible.

“Beats me. Considering how many of your kind I’ve done this exact same thing to.” Dennis pulled Mac up further to gain access to the fatty behind, but paused on seeing the tail, quivering from tip to base. He thought of how sensitive that area was, how much Mac had squealed when he ran his tongue along it in the past.

“We’re your friends,” Mac slurred above him, while he began licking around the tail. “Friends don’t do this to each otheroh _God that hurts that hurts so much –”_

It was a little tougher than the rest of Mac, but still no trouble to tear right off his body. Mac had found the ability to scream again, and Dennis got to look him in the eyes this time, blown wide with horror and agony while he chewed up the appendage like a long piece of al dente spaghetti. “Oh, I _like_ that flavour,” he said. “Kind of smoky, earthy.” He finally let go of Mac’s legs, returning his attention to his torso. He rested a hand against Mac’s stomach, licking his lips. “You know what I really can’t wait for, is all that gooey stuff inside.”

Mac’s whole body may as well have been one single red spot of pain by now, but the thought of those teeth ripping right into his insides still sent a shudder through him. “Don’t. Please, don’t.”

“What, you don’t want me to rip into your stomach and eat your intestines? That’s funny, all my other dinners felt the same way.”

“Just kill me now.” Mac threw his head back, arching his throat to expose the jugular. “You’re gonna do it anyway, just tear my throat out. For me, for our friendship, can’t you do that?”

Dennis pouted. “Aw, that’s no fun. And besides, look at you, I’ve barely got started.”

“Then – fucking get started or something, get on with it, stop dragging this out!”

“If you insist.” Dennis opened his mouth wide, preparing to take his first huge bite of the evening out of Mac’s belly. He might not survive long after it, but it would be glorious. All that hot rich blood gushing out from inside, the soft savoury meats waiting to be ravaged, the culmination of twenty years of friendship and one month of infatuation, all of it would be his at last.

Dennis bit, got one sweet moment of bliss, before a loud crack thundered in his ears followed by a flash of pain in the back of his head, and he knew no more.

* * *

For an indeterminate amount of time, Mac floated in and out, sinking blissfully into a murky darkness where he felt nothing at all, only to resurface into a blurry mess of colours and discomfort and the most intense pain he had ever known. This was what it was like to die, then. This was a prey’s death. It was when something hot cut right into his arm that his final moment of consciousness blinked into nothingness, and he was mercifully cast into the dark, never to return.

And then, silence.

“… Stay with me, buddy…”

He was dead. Dennis had killed him. He’d fallen in love with a fox, and gotten his guts ripped out for the trouble. Like Dennis said, what else was going to happen?

“You’re not dead. You’re chewed up bad though, don’t try and talk too much.”

Charlie was dead too. That wasn’t so bad. They could be dead together.

“Damn it Mac! Neither of us are dead!”

His eyes opened. His whole body was on fire, he had the worst stomach ache in the history of the world, his legs barely felt attached to his body, and his arm… He couldn’t feel his arm at all. Mac jolted awake, looked over to his right side, to find… Nothing. His arm was gone.

“Wha…” he said, but nothing else would come. “What…” He was unbelievably, achingly tired. Why was his arm missing.

“The arm was barely there when you still had it. I had to cut it off and burn the wound.” Charlie was saying. Mac was lying on a bed, much larger than his own – Charlie’s bed, he realised. In Charlie’s apartment, with Charlie who was alive, alive and looking down at Mac with equal amounts of concern and relief. There was a nasty gash on his neck, covered over with dried blood. “I did my best with the tourniquet, but we’re gonna have to get you to a hospital soon.”

“How,” Mac got out at last.

Charlie produced a pistol from his back pocket. “I started carrying one of these around ever since the McPoyles got the Waitress. I just managed to shoot Dee down when she started trying to bite my head off.” Mac stared dumbly at him, at the gun, only just able to focus on Charlie’s words. “I had to figure out how to drive her car to get to you in time. It was bad, dude. He’d bitten a huge chunk out of your tummy.” He gestured to Mac’s stomach, which was tightly, if inexpertly wrapped in bandages, a red splotch in the centre. “I got him with two shots to the head before he even saw me, but you’d already passed out.”

Mac coughed; Charlie rolled off the bed for a moment and returned with a glass of water. He carefully propped Mac up against the pillows, fed him the water slowly, until Mac felt capable of speech. “Dennis is dead?” he croaked.

“Dead as disco.” Charlie shook his head. “Don’t cry over him, man.”

“’M sorry,” Mac mumbled, making to wipe his eyes, only to realise belatedly that the hand he intended to use no longer existed. Dennis was gone. In the myriad of horrifying facts that swam around him, digging into his brain and body like a hundred pointed teeth, this one still managed to cut the deepest. He couldn’t get the image out of his head, Dennis lying on the bed, glassy-eyed, the back of his head blown to pieces. And alongside it, the still-fresh terror of him leering at him from above, slowly chewing him piece by piece. His chest constricted, but his body simply could not go through the convulsion of a sob, the pain in his abdomen was so intense. The tears flowed ceaselessly from his eyes, while Charlie continued to coax him into drinking water. “You were right,” he managed to say. “Should never have let him…”

“I was. You shouldn’t.” There was no anger in his voice, only a sad resignation.

“How could they do that to us?”

Charlie was furiously scrubbing at his own eyes now. “Cause we’re not people?” he spat bitterly. “We’re bottom-feeders. We don’t count. Not even to them.”

Mac nodded sluggishly. “Maybe that’s how it’s meant to be,” he said.

That made sense, right? They’d fitted together so well. The four of them, perfectly balanced, and him and Dennis, the perfect team. If that union was destined to end in blood and tears, maybe that was just how things in the world were supposed to go. Why would God have made them the way they were, if it were otherwise?

But Charlie vehemently shook his head. “Fuck that. You just survived a hole in your stomach and your arm being cut off. And those fox bitches are the dead ones.” There was a hardness to his eyes, Mac noticed, one that hadn’t been there before. That innocent gleam they’d had since childhood, it was gone now. “Who cares what’s _meant_ to be? What even is that? I’m alive, you’re alive. I wanna keep us that way.”

Mac’s eyes were slipping closed again, the exhaustion taking him over. A rancid-smelling blanket was thrown over him; he felt Charlie’s rough hands stroking his hair and ears. It was a tiny spot of calm in a world of pain and anger and despair, and he was grateful for it. Yet, even as Charlie was the one muttering soothing words and reassurances, even though he had saved his life, Mac couldn’t help where his mind went as it tumbled down the path to sleep. More than anything, he wished he could be kissed by Dennis one last time.

The wound on Charlie’s neck was itching again. He scratched it, glanced over to the other side of the bed, where Dee was sprawled on the floor, a trickle of blood dried on her chin. He’d called an ambulance; they’d be here any moment. The thought crossed his mind that the paramedics might be predators too, that he may be in for yet more peril. His hand clenched around the gun, his other wrapped tightly round sleeping Mac’s shoulders. Let them come, whoever they were. Mac was safe as long as he was with him.

**Author's Note:**

> of course it's anonymous you think I want my name anywhere near this


End file.
